The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
The striking, dark, red walls at the Barbican’s Curve are painted for Citra Sasmita’s new exhibition, Into the Eternal Land, embodying the spirit of her Timur Merah Project. The artist started this project in 2019 to reimagine and interrogate the role of female figures in canonical historical literature and art. In a 2024 interview with ArtBasel, Sasmita says:
“I found that a lot of stories from ancient manuscripts only portray male heroism. They only talk about women in relation to their function for procreation and sexuality. If they portray a powerful woman, they will portray her as a monstrous figure”.
Walking through the exhibition, with lengthy tapestries that curve along the gallery walls, the influential and central figures Sasmita depicts are based on not just the past but also the women of today.
Sasmita’s expansive project’s first iteration was titled Timur Merah Project I: Embrace of My Motherland (2019) and showcased at the Biennale Jogja, which takes place in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Five hanging scrolls were placed in a room with deep red walls, curving up to meet the audience. In these scrolls, Sasmita began to re-write history, putting women at the centre of her depictions, surrounded by fire or dripping blood. Here, she uses bloodshed to symbolise sacrifice while fire stands for purity, both rituals that allow reconciliation with the past. Red is an important colour for Balinese ritual culture; by incorporating fire and blood in her work, Sasmita attempts to reconcile the present with the past.
While researching and looking through historical archives, traditional classical paintings and ancient manuscripts, Sasmita was overwhelmed by the constant commodification of women. With the focus on male bravado, machismo, and old tales that talk of men and war, women in these texts are often sidelined to being prized possessions, treasures to be conquered or reduced to objects of romance. In her work, Sasmita focuses on the female body as a source - the beginning, the middle and the end of a story. She paints her tapestries with women, surrounded by fire and blood, undertaking these rituals of sacrifice and purity and reclaiming their position of power and strength to subvert the male gaze and bring women to the centre of the scrolls.
The importance of red is highlighted in the first work in this exhibition. Titled Prologue (2024), the work is constructed of beaded cowhides hung on antique wooden pillars. The beading is red and appears like thin veins across the unbleached skin and hair of the cow. This installation is representative of the sacrifice that Sasmita refers to. She focuses on the animal sacrifice when someone returns home and pays respect to their ancestors. Greek and Roman mythology also feature this tradition, where sacrifices are a way to pay respect to the Gods.
The exhibition is divided into parts like a play, and after the prologue comes Act One (2024). It consists of four long tapestries, two on each side of the walls, that curve with the room. The tapestries are made from acrylic paint on Kamasan canvas, an ancient Indonesian style long used for Indonesian mythologies and Hindu epics. She reproduces this style, however, in her tapestries, imagining a post-patriarchal world. She paints women’s bodies as radically intertwined with nature, depicting trees growing from the top of women’s heads rising from a body of water. In some figures, she paints a woman's body but replaces the head with branches of a tree while depicting the body in motion. The sense of motion continues along the tapestries, focusing on women as creators and sources from where the world begins and ends.
The epilogue of this exhibition includes a circle made from turmeric and drawn on the floor, around which are cushions for visitors to sit on. In the turmeric, the artist writes phrases such as “the words become a fountain and wisdom becomes the current”. With this, the artist creates a space for rest and meditation with her exhibition, a spot away from the world to consider the everyday discrimination against women. By adding an enchanting and relaxing soundscape by Agha Praditya, an Indonesian musician, Sasmita transforms her exhibition into a multi-sensory experience.
Not only does Sasmita focus on creating an immersive experience that proposes a focus on women's agencies through history and in the present, but by incorporating Kamasan painting and mythological stories, she highlights Indonesia’s colonial experience and the hyperfixation on the country as an exotic location for tourism. Questioning and interrogating stories of the past, Sasmita creates a powerful space to reconstruct the future.
